Part 28 (1/2)
The reader must have long antic.i.p.ated the discovery which the Queen's feelings had made before her eyes confirmed it. It was the features of the unhappy George Douglas, on which death was stamping his mark.
”Look--look at him well,” said the Queen, ”thus has it been with all who loved Mary Stewart!--The royalty of Francis, the wit of Chastelar, the power and gallantry of the gay Gordon, the melody of Rizzio, the portly form and youthful grace of Darnley, the bold address and courtly manners of Bothwell--and now the deep-devoted pa.s.sion of the n.o.ble Douglas--nought could save them!--they looked on the wretched Mary, and to have loved her was crime enough to deserve early death! No sooner had the victim formed a kind thought of me, than the poisoned cup, the axe and block, the dagger, the mine, were ready to punish them for casting away affection on such a wretch as I am!--Importune me not--I will fly no farther--I can die but once, and I will die here.”
While she spoke, her tears fell fast on the face of the dying man, who continued to fix his eyes on her with an eagerness of pa.s.sion, which death itself could hardly subdue.--”Mourn not for me,” he said faintly, ”but care for your own safety--I die in mine armour as a Douglas should, and I die pitied by Mary Stewart!”
He expired with these words, and without withdrawing his eyes from her face; and the Queen, whose heart was of that soft and gentle mould, which in domestic life, and with a more suitable partner than Darnley, might have made her happy, remained weeping by the dead man, until recalled to herself by the Abbot, who found it necessary to use a style of unusual remonstrance. ”We also, madam,” he said, ”we, your Grace's devoted followers, have friends and relatives to weep for. I leave a brother in imminent jeopardy--the husband of the Lady Fleming--the father and brothers of the Lady Catherine, are all in yonder b.l.o.o.d.y field, slain, it is to be feared, or prisoners. We forget the fate of our nearest and dearest, to wait on our Queen, and she is too much occupied with her own sorrows to give one thought to ours.”
”I deserve not your reproach, father,” said the Queen, checking her tears; ”but I am docile to it--where must we go--what must we do?”
”We must fly, and that instantly,” said the Abbot; ”whither is not so easily answered, but we may dispute it upon the road--Lift her to her saddle, and set forward.”
[Footnote: I am informed in the most polite manner, by D. MacVean, Esq. of Glasgow, that I have been incorrect in my locality, in giving an account of the battle of Langside. Crookstone Castle, he observes, lies four miles west from the field of battle, and rather in the rear of Murray's army. The real place from which Mary saw the rout of her last army, was Cathcart Castle, which, being a mile and a half east from Langside, was, situated in the rear of the Queen's own army. I was led astray in the present case, by the authority of my deceased friend, James Grahame the excellent and amiable author of the Sabbath, in his drama on the subject of Queen Mary; and by a traditionary report of Mary having seen the battle from the Castle of Crookstone, which seemed so much to increase the interest of the scene, that I have been unwilling to make, in this particular instance, the fiction give way to the fact, which last is undoubtedly in favour of Mr. MacVean's system.
It is singular how tradition, which is sometimes a sure guide to truth, is, in other cases, p.r.o.ne to mislead us. In the celebrated field of battle at Killiecrankie, the traveller is struck with one of those rugged pillars of rough stone, which indicate the scenes of ancient conflict. A friend of the author, well acquainted with the circ.u.mstances of the battle, was standing near this large stone, and looking on the scene around, when a highland shepherd hurried down from the hill to offer his services as cicerone, and proceeded to inform him, that Dundee was slain at that stone, which was raised to his memory. ”Fie, Donald.” answered my friend, ”how can you tell such a story to a stranger? I am sure you know well enough that Dundee was killed at a considerable distance from this place, near the house of Fascally, and that this stone was here long before the battle, in 1688.”--”Oich! oich!” said Donald, no way abashed, ”and your honour's in the right, and I see you ken a' about it. And he wasna killed on the spot neither, but lived till the next morning; but a' the Saxon gentlemen like best to hear he was killed at the great stane.” It is on the same principle of pleasing my readers, that I retain Crookstone Castle instead of Cathcart.
If, however, the author has taken a liberty in removing the actual field of battle somewhat to the eastward, he has been tolerably strict in adhering to the incidents of the engagement, as will appear from it comparison of events in the novel, with the following account from an old writer.
”The Regent was out on foot and all his company, except the Laird of Grange, Alexander Hume of Manderston, and some borderers to the number of two hundred. The Laird of Grange had already viewed the ground, and with all imaginable diligence caused every horseman to take behind him a footman of the Regent's, to guard behind them, and rode with speed to the head of Langside-hill, and set down the footmen with their culverings at the head of a straight lane, where there were some cottage houses and yards of great advantage. Which soldiers with their continual shot killed divers of the vaunt guard, led by the Hamiltons, who, courageously and fiercely ascending up the hill, were already out of breath, when the Regent's vaunt guard joined with them. Where the worthy Lord Hume fought on foot with his pike in his hand very manfully, a.s.sisted by the Laird of Cessford, his brother-in-law, who helped him up again when he was strucken to the ground by many strokes upon his face, through the throwing pistols at him after they had been discharged. He was also wounded with staves, and had many strokes of spears through his legs; for he and Grange, at the joining, cried to let their adversaries first lay down their spears, to bear up theirs; which spears were so thick fixed in the others' jacks, that some of the pistols and great staves that were thrown by them which were behind, might be seen lying upon the spears.
”Upon the Queen's side the Earl of Argyle commanded the battle, and the Lord of Arbroth the vaunt guard. But the Regent committed to the Laird of Grange the special care, as being an experimented captain, to oversee every danger, and to ride to every wing, to encourage and make help where greatest need was. He perceived, at the first joining, the right wing of the Regent's vaunt guard put back and like to fly, whereof the greatest part were commons of the barony of Renfrew; whereupon he rode to them, and told them that their enemy was already turning their backs, requesting them to stay and debate till he should bring them fresh men forth of the battle. Whither at full speed he did ride alone, and told the Regent that the enemy were shaken and flying away behind the little village, and desired a few number of fresh men to go with him. Where he found enough willing, as the Lord Lindesay, the Laird of Lochleven, Sir James Balfour, and all the Regent's servants, who followed him with diligence, and reinforced that wing which was beginning to fly; which fresh men with their loose weapons struck the enemies in their flank and faces, which forced them incontinent to give place and turn back after long fighting and pus.h.i.+ng others to and fro with their spears. There were not many hors.e.m.e.n to pursue after them, and the Regent cried to save and not to kill, and Grange was never cruel, so that there were few slain and taken. And the only slaughter was at the first rencounter by the shot of the soldiers, which Grange had planted at the lane head behind some dikes.”
It is remarkable that, while pa.s.sing through the small town of Renfrew, some partisans, adherents of the House of Lennox, attempting to arrest Queen Mary and her attendants, were obliged to make way for her not without slaughter.]
They set off accordingly--Roland lingered a moment to command the attendants of the Knight of Avenel to convey their master to the Castle of Crookstone, and to say that he demanded from him no other condition of liberty, than his word, that he and his followers would keep secret the direction in which the Queen fled. As he turned his rein to depart, the honest countenance of Adam Woodc.o.c.k stared upon him with an expression of surprise, which, at another time, would have excited his hearty mirth. He had been one of the followers who had experienced the weight of Roland's arm, and they now knew each other, Roland having put up his visor, and the good yeoman having thrown away his barret-cap, with the iron bars in front, that he might the more readily a.s.sist his master. Into this barret-cap, as it lay on the ground, Roland forgot not to drop a few gold pieces, (fruits of the Queen's liberality,) and with a signal of kind recollection and enduring friends.h.i.+p, he departed at full gallop to overtake the Queen, the dust raised by her train being already far down the hill.
”It is not fairy-money,” said honest Adam, weighing and handling the gold--”And it was Master Roland himself, that is a certain thing--the same open hand, and, by our Lady!” (shrugging his shoulders)--”the same ready fist!--My Lady will hear of this gladly, for she mourns for him as if he were her son. And to see how gay he is! But these light lads are as sure to be uppermost as the froth to be on the top of the quart-pot--Your man of solid parts remains ever a falconer.” So saying, he went to aid his comrades, who had now come up in greater numbers, to carry his master into the Castle of Crookstone.
Chapter the Thirty-Eighth.
My native land, good night! BYRON.
Many a bitter tear was shed, during the hasty flight of Queen Mary, over fallen hopes, future prospects, and slaughtered friends. The deaths of the brave Douglas, and of the fiery but gallant young Seyton, seemed to affect the Queen as much as the fall from the throne, on which she had so nearly been again seated. Catherine Seyton devoured in secret her own grief, anxious to support the broken spirits of her mistress; and the Abbot, bending his troubled thoughts upon futurity, endeavoured in vain to form some plan which had a shadow of hope. The spirit of young Roland--for he also mingled in the hasty debates held by the companions of the Queen's flight--continued unchecked and unbroken.
”Your Majesty,” he said, ”has lost a battle--Your ancestor, Bruce, lost seven successively, ere he sat triumphant on the Scottish throne, and proclaimed with the voice of a victor, in the field of Bannockburn, the independence of his country. Are not these heaths, which we may traverse at will, better than the locked, guarded, and lake-moated Castle of Lochleven?--We are free--in that one word there is comfort for all our losses.”
He struck a bold note, but the heart of Mary made no response.
”Better,” she said, ”I had still been in Lochleven, than seen the slaughter made by rebels among the subjects who offered themselves to death for my sake. Speak not to me of farther efforts--they would only cost the lives of you, the friends who recommend them! I would not again undergo what I felt, when I saw from yonder mount the swords of the fell hors.e.m.e.n of Morton raging among the faithful Seytons and Hamiltons, for their loyalty to their Queen--I would not again feel what I felt when Douglas's life-blood stained my mantle for his love to Mary Stewart--not to be empress of all that Britain's seas enclose. Find for me some place where I can hide my unhappy head, which brings destruction on all who love it--it is the last favour that Mary asks of her faithful followers.”
In this dejected mood, but still pursuing her flight with unabated rapidity, the unfortunate Mary, after having been joined by Lord Herries and a few followers, at length halted, for the first time, at the Abbey of Dundrennan, nearly sixty miles distant from the field of battle. In this remote quarter of Galloway, the Reformation not having yet been strictly enforced against the monks, a few still lingered in their cells unmolested; and the Prior, with tears and reverence, received the fugitive Queen at the gate of his convent.
”I bring you ruin, my good father,” said the Queen, as she was lifted from her palfrey.
”It is welcome,” said the Prior, ”if it comes in the train of duty.”
Placed on the ground, and supported by her ladies, the Queen looked for an instant at her palfrey, which, jaded and drooping its head, seemed as if it mourned the distresses of its mistress.
”Good Roland,” said the Queen, whispering, ”let Rosabelle be cared for --ask thy heart, and it will tell thee why I make this trifling request even in this awful hour.”
She was conducted to her apartment, and in the hurried consultation of her attendants, the fatal resolution of the retreat to England was finally adopted. In the morning it received her approbation, and a messenger was despatched to the English warden, to pray him for safe-conduct and hospitality, on the part of the Queen of Scotland. On the next day the Abbot Ambrose walked in the garden of the Abbey with Roland, to whom he expressed his disapprobation of the course pursued. ”It is madness and ruin,” he said; ”better commit herself to the savage Highlanders or wild Bordermen, than to the faith of Elizabeth. A woman to a rival woman--a presumptive successor to the keeping of a jealous and childless Queen!--Roland, Herries is true and loyal, but his counsel has ruined his mistress.”
”Ay, ruin follows us every where,” said an old man, with a spade in his hand, and dressed like a lay-brother, of whose presence, in the vehemence of his exclamation, the Abbot had not been aware--”Gaze not on me with such wonder!--I am he who was the Abbot Boniface at Kennaquhair, who was the gardener Blinkhoolie at Lochleven, hunted round to the place in which I served my noviciate, and now ye are come to rouse me up again!--A weary life I have had for one to whom peace was ever the dearest blessing!”
”We will soon rid you of our company, good father,” said the Abbot; ”and the Queen will, I fear, trouble your retreat no more.”
”Nay, you said as much before,” said the querulous old man, ”and yet I was put forth from Kinross, and pillaged by troopers on the road.--They took from me the certificate that you wot of--that of the Baron--ay, he was a moss-trooper like themselves--You asked me of it, and I could never find it, but they found it--it showed the marriage of--of--my memory fails me--Now see how men differ! Father Nicholas would have told you an hundred tales of the Abbot Ingelram, on whose soul G.o.d have mercy!--He was, I warrant you, fourscore and six, and I am not more than--let me see----”
”Was not Avenel the name you seek, my good father?” said Roland, impatiently, yet moderating his tone for fear of alarming or offending the infirm old man.
”Ay, right--Avenel, Julian Avenel--You are perfect in the name--I kept all the special confessions, judging it held with my vow to do so--I could not find it when my successor, Ambrosius, spoke on't--but the troopers found it, and the Knight who commanded the party struck his breast, till the target clattered like an empty watering-can.”
”Saint Mary!” said the Abbot, ”in whom could such a paper excite such interest! What was the appearance of the knight, his arms, his colours?”
”Ye distract me with your questions--I dared hardly look at him--they charged me with bearing letters for the Queen, and searched my mail-- This was all along of your doings at Lochleven.”
”I trust in G.o.d,” said the Abbot to Roland, who stood beside him, s.h.i.+vering and trembling ”with impatience,” the paper has fallen into the hands of my brother--I heard he had been with his followers on the scout betwixt Stirling and Glasgow.--Bore not the Knight a holly-bough on his helmet?--Canst thou not remember?”
”Oh, remember--remember,” said the old man pettishly; ”count as many years as I do, if your plots will let you, and see what, and how much, you remember.--Why, I scarce remember the pear-mains which I graffed here with my own hands some fifty years since.”
At this moment a bugle sounded loudly from the beach.
”It is the death-blast to Queen Mary's royalty,” said Ambrosius; ”the English warden's answer has been received, favourable doubtless, for when was the door of the trap closed against the prey which it was set for?--Droop not, Roland--this matter shall be sifted to the bottom--but we must not now leave the Queen--follow me--let us do our duty, and trust the issue with G.o.d--Farewell, good Father--I will visit thee again soon.”
He was about to leave the garden, followed by Roland, with half-reluctant steps. The Ex-Abbot resumed his spade.